


hell is empty (and we are the only ones here)

by Shamelessly_Radiant



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Asexual Character, Can maybe be read as slash?, Gen, M/M, Or as one-sided, Shawn - Freeform, idk - Freeform, not really a character study but something like that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-25
Updated: 2020-02-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 07:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22900006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shamelessly_Radiant/pseuds/Shamelessly_Radiant
Summary: Michael & Shawn, before, during, and at the end of things.
Relationships: Michael & Shawn (The Good Place), Michael/Shawn (The Good Place)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 82





	hell is empty (and we are the only ones here)

_14 billions of years ago, give or take_

At the start of things, there is nothing. It is warm, and it is heavy, and it is empty. Then, once, suddenly, never, there is an explosion. Humans will later call this the Big Bang, those stupid ding-dongs, but they simply call it their birth.

Gen used to joke that their birth was the big thing about the bang.

But that was years ago.

_5 billions of years ago  
_

A demon is always named by the one that called him to being.

Shawn didn't like his given name, so he changed it. He took the form of a 45 year old white male, he can do that. He can also work a path of retirment through the senior architect position and ensure all of the departments total cooperation.

He's ruthless. He's a bad bitch.

He names Michael 'Michael', because he likes irony. By now, they're operating on the Jeremy Bearimy timeline, which means that they're able to get up-close and personal with all biblic events and histories and the wildly exagerated legends that spawn from that. Gen - or 'The Judge', as she is known by now, is the only one capable of bringing people back to life, and she firmly put her foot down on that decades ago and years after this. Events happen before the events that happened before, and after, and simultanously, and july is something no one likes to define but definitely brings forth the best people and _bonus--_ it drives simple-minded humans (like Chidi, who freaked out after merely seeing the time-knife, but that has yet to happen) _totally insane._ Which is, always, a huge bonus and a fun way to torture them.

Humans stink. They pumped more and more carbon dioxide into the sky and stood idly by as species died but-- digressing.

Sarcasm is cool, but irony is what really gets people to lose points. And everything that gets him more penises to flatten is something he likes. Or something he will like. Or something he liked. Ugh. Jeremy Bearimy, baby, as someone he knew long ago used to say.

Anyways. Michael is born mostly because too many fire squids are named Lucifer already and it's become unoriginal.

He proudly watched that ball of tongues expand into the 6000-foot fire squid billions of years ago.

He never thought to predict what would follow.

_about 5 billions of years ago, also. Ugh  
_

On a different timeline somewhere in the universe, Earth starts existing. And at first, it's great fun. Everything gets immediately blamed on this lady called Eve, brothers kill each other with stones, incest is a thing.

But then, people start dying.

And they suddenly pop into existence in their realm and, like, _freak out_ when confronted with fire squids and lava slugs and five headed sulfur bears.

They turn to God. He (or she?) created earth, and light and heaven and now gets to decide--

Hah. Just messing with you. Like your mom, last night.

No. In the end, it is simple. There is good, and there is evil, but after several _strong-worded_ and _stern_ and _very concerned_ letters from the idiots that now run the Good Place comity and mostly eat peaches while doing so, it gets called the Bad Place.

For them it's home.

Someone gets extra inspired by Guantanamo Bay on Earth and suddenly, they're architects, and Shawn is running the entirety of Hell shortly. And yes, he calls it hell, mostly because he likes the look on the humans after they arrive.

Michael starts as an apprentice under him, and no one flattens penises better than he does. But he has a bad tendency of getting bored quickly, which, could pottentialy turn problematic.

Gen is no help. Always in her chambers by now. Simultanously binging _Friends, How I met your mother_ and _Downtown Abbey._

At least she has better taste than watching those Carribean Pirate movies.

_Still about 5 billions of years ago, according to your stupid timeline anyways_

And then, Eleanor Shellstrop dies.

But this part of the story you already know.

Michael deflects. Michael gets too fascinated by humans. Michael accuses him of not caring. Michael runs away. Michael tells him to retire him already, which, no, he would never, he'd rather lock him up in this stupid nondescriptive cell for billions of years, or until everyone has forgotten about this, and he doesn't like thinking about retiring Michael, because it gives him this weird congestion feeling and makes him not able to poop, which, he _likes_ pooping, okay? He chooses to do so. And ugh, Chidi/Igby/Whatever must be rubbing of on him.

And Michael only ever talks about Eleanor anymore. Eleanor this, Eleanor that, and slowly it shifts from torture to saving and he'd accuse Michael of obsession but he has become very obsessed with those wasp nostrils so- no, Michael is obsessed, and that's it. The end. He's fine.

(Ugh. There's Chidi again).

**_Still_ ** _5 billions of years ago, do you even know how long billions last? Stop bothering me and go cry to your mommy - whom I did last night, btw._

So yeah, yeah. The four dumb humans, or whatever they call themselves-- dung beetles, is it? The dung beetles get the judge to erase the earth and everything is fine, okay, completely fine, and he's smashing glass for no reason other than to be petty and mean and cruel in the place where Michael first started this whole dumb thing.

He admits it, sort of, a bit later. Seconds, minutes? How stupid is time on earth anyways? Standing next to a fountain, birds singing in the sky, the water splashing as it falls back down, the sun glinting in Michael's eyes, all that crap, he says _Fighting you is the most fun I've ever had._

Michael knows it too, after all. That same restlessness runs in their not-veins. The feeling that after a while, all nostrils are just another nostril with another wasp, all butholes with spiders look exactly the same, even flattening penises loses it charm.

Michael gets it, or should get it, because Michael is the one that did all this crazy shirt- they forgot to turn off the filter, or the 'good' guys turned it back on, but Michael's got company now. He has Jason, and Tahani, and Chidi, and Eleanor. Shawn got stuck with stupid Glenn and even stupider Vicky and ony semi-competent Val.

 _I know, buddy,_ Michael says, with none of the softness he reserves for E-dog, but somehow, Shawn doesn't mind.

 _Let's try a new way. Together._ He says, and Shawn gets stuck with some of the words reverbrating in his head.

He looks away.

There is only one answer here.

But you knew that too.

_I'm not going to bother with this anymore. Figure it out. Maybe like 4 billions of years ago, now? A hundred of bearimys? Something in between? You do the math._

When Chidi walks through that door, Shawn watches.

When Jason walks through, he watches.

When Michael tries to, he watches.

He is not watching when Eleanor walks through, though.

_Whatever_

And how stupid of a name is Realman, anyways? It's a pun rolled into an unfunny way of trying to be humorous and it is a true statement and it is so unwitty and so very Michael Shawn feels the strong urge to punch a wall. With his head. Or Glenn's. Repeatedly.

_5246543213 - hah. no. keep up_

When Michael dies, Shawn claims the tests. On the basis that Tahani and Vicky are too invested in this.

It's the first time in years that Michael and him have been face-to-face, and he _relishes_ the thought.

But Michael blinks, and it is only after a hazy recollection and some long minutes that he seems to somehow, kind of, barely, remember him.

All at once, he gets humans. How a minute can feel like an eternity, and like no time at all has passed.

_I'm switching to Jeremy Bearimy now. We're in the dot. It's tuesday today. Taco day. That gives you diarrhoea and indigestion all at once. This is still the bad place, baby._

After millions of tests, Michael becomes surer of him. He remembers more often and faster now.

After another million times, Michael looks him in the eye, like he did on that square years ago. You remember, with the birds and the fountain, and the colourful if chipped Froyo sign and asks, just like he did then, "what's wrong, Shawn?"

_In the J, or the A, or some Bearimys later._

When Michael walks through the door, Shawn is unsurprised, undisturbed, and unbothered.

He resolutely turns away from the screen and thinks about bringing the penis flatteners back.

_Another few Bearimys later. Not a lot. Some. It has nothing to do with recent (or not so recent, or future or whatever) events anyways._

When they finally scoop up his essence with a flaming laddle, his last conscious thought is-- _I never got to do my stupid evil speech_.

**Author's Note:**

> (Anyways. This was not a manifesto. Only idiots write _that._ )
> 
> Edit. You ~~lovely readers~~ , hem, I mean _idiots_ want to get into the Good Place quicker? Then comment on these things. 
> 
> ~~xoxo~~


End file.
